SHANGHAI, Nov 15 (SMM) – This is a roundup of global macroeconomic news last night and what is expected today.

Last night

The US extended its decline from 16-month highs against the euro and pound, which increased as traders monitored developments of Brexit and the Italian budget.

Hopes that the UK parliament would approve a draft accord for Brexit buoyed the two currencies, while the euro was slightly affected by uncertainty on how EU officials would react to Italy's latest fiscal proposal after they rejected them last month for violation of certain EU rules.

"The focus is on Brexit and Italy. They have been putting pressure on sterling and the euro the past few days," said Minh Trang, senior currency trader at a Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California.

Italy re-submitted its draft budget to the European Commission with the same growth and deficit assumptions, but with lower deb.

Base metals rose for the most part as SHFE tin led the gains and closed 1.23% higher. SHFE lead jumped 0.54%, copper nudged up, while zinc, nickel, and aluminium went down slightly. LME copper increased 0.86%, zinc grew 0.36%, tin rose 0.33%, aluminium went up 0.28%, while nickel and lead edged down.  

In October, China’s value add by industrial enterprises above a designated size gained 5.9% year on year, compared to September’s gain of 5.8%, showed data by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Rtail sales of consumer goods grew 8.6% year on year in October, slower from the 9.2% growth in September.
 
Investment in fixed assets in urban areas rose 5.7% year on year during January-October, but the growth ratio fell 0.3 percentage point compared to a year ago.

"The national economy registered progress while maintaining stability in October, keeping the good momentum of long-term development. However, we must be aware that given uncertain and unstable factors abroad, there are concerns over the slower though stable economic development which is under downward pressure," according to a press release on the NBS website. 

The German economy contracted for the first time since 2015, in the third quarter as global trade disputes swung the traditional export growth engine of Europe's largest economy into reverse.

Its gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 0.2% quarter on quarter, the Federal Statistics Office said on Wednesday.

"The slight decline in GDP compared to the previous quarter was mainly due to foreign trade developments: provisional calculations show there were fewer exports but more imports in the third quarter than in the second," the office said.

Eurozone economic growth halved in the third quarter, estimates from the Eurostat confirmed on Wednesday. 

Gross domestic product grew 0.2% from the second quarter, when the economy expanded 0.4%. On a year-on-year basis, GDP rose 1.7% in the third quarter following a 2.2% increase in the previous three months. 

The US consumer prices increased by the most in nine months in October amid gains in the cost of gasoline and rents, pointing to steadily rising inflation that likely will keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates again next month.

The Labor Department said on Wednesday that its consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.3% last month after edging up 0.1% in September. In the 12 months through October, the CPI increased 2.5%, picking up from September's 2.3% rise.

Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the CPI climbed 0.2% from September. The so-called core CPI had gained 0.1% for two straight months. On a yearly basis, the core CPI increased 2.1% after advancing 2.2% in September.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) reported late Wednesday that US crude supplies rose by 8.79 million barrels for the week ended November 9. The API data also showed gasoline supplies edged up by 188,000 barrels while distillate stockpiles fell 3.2 million barrels.

Day ahead

Economic data slated for release today include the eurozone trade balance for September, the US retail sales and import price index for October, its weekly jobless claims, and EIA weekly crude oil inventory data.